Rick Santorum Brings Campaign Message To Steubenville

STEUBENVILLE, Ohio (KDKA) — At Froelich’s Classic Corner restaurant in Steubenville, owner Greg Froelich tried hard not to give his personal view on his famous guest.

“We are predominantly a Democratic community,” he said. “I am very independent and so I’m going to stay away from that question.”

But there was no such reticence by the large crowd that turned out to greet Rick Santorum.

And while Santorum began with an economic pitch, he quickly turned to his conservative agenda and a blistering attack on President Obama.

“He has this ideology of government centralized control, not worried about the interests of people, he’s worried about the interests of power, so he can dictate to people what he believes is best for them,” Santorum said.

Santorum said the growth of entitlement programs has weakened the family.

“We’ve seen a degradation of the American family. We’ve seen an explosion of out of wedlock births. We’ve seen a culture that is radically changed.”

And he decried that culture of sexual permissiveness.

“Thirty years ago 71 percent of the people over 18 in this country were married. It’s now 51 percent – a 5 percent drop in the last three years alone.”

And Santorum harkened back to an earlier better time, in his view.

“My grandfather didn’t come to this country so he could get government benefits. There were no government benefits in 1925 — except one, freedom. That was the biggest government benefit.”

Jon Delano is a familiar face on KDKA-TV, having been the station's political analyst since 1994.
In September 2001 Jon joined KDKA full time as the Money & Politics Editor and this region’s only political analyst who covers national and local...